By Honoka Akazawa
Can you fluently communicate in English with native speakers of English ? A lot of university students in Japan have an aversion to speaking English. According to the study by Tang & Ohashi, “66% university students in Japan said that the were not good at speaking English.” The necessity of speaking English will increase in the future. However, a lot of Japanese don’t speak English well, much less office workers don’t have time studying English. Why are not Japanese people good at speaking English? I would like to present three reasons why Japanese cannot speak English well; studying English for university entrance exams, cultural barrier to speak English, and having less chances speaking English.
Firstly, most Japanese people have a recognition that studying English is for university entrance exams. This way of thinking is affected by English education in Japan. Japanese students take English classes to improve skills reading and writing. They don’t have English classes for practicing speaking and pronunciation. According to a study by Sugiura (2017), “some students who left an impression what classes focused on language format said that they don’t have sense of using English by themselves. So, we can understand they are passive that they studied English for their tests.” Then even though students in Japan take English classes for six years, most people don’t speak English well. This is a fact in Japan. We need English classes that teach, listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
Secondly, modesty in Japanese culture discourages Japanese people to speak up in front of English speakers. Tang & Ohashi point out that “Taking a passive role in the daily communications in Japanese seems to be a major problem for difficulty of cross-cultural communications in English.” Japanese feel that making a mistake is embarrassing. A lot of Japanese people are afraid of making mistakes. This is a Japanese culture, a culture of shame. According to Tang & Ohashi, “Japanese people are aware of what other people think about us and how other people react, and act to avoid being ridiculed by other people.” This culture of shame has a bad influence on speaking English. Therefore, people make neat an atmosphere that discourage speaking wrong English. They care about more correctness of grammar than communication.
Thirdly, Japanese don’t have a chance to speak English with other people. Since Japanese people do not experience speaking English enough they can’t have confidence about their English. And they don’t feel necessity of using English. I think that is because of an island country. If Japan connected by land, Japanese have more chance talking in English to people who speak English.
For these reasons, most Japanese can’t speak English. I think that Japanese English learners should change how to study English.
Huanu, T. & Makoto, O. , A study on different communication-consideration-Focusing on the culture of “shame” and “emotional dependence.” Qingdao Language School of Science and Technology, and Tokushima University School of Education. rsr_8_1.pdf
Rie, S. (2017), English Language Learning of Japanese University Students-A Qualitative Investigation based on Narrative Frames- J. Higher Education, Tokai University (Hokkaido Campus) jheTmplt2010 (u-tokai.ac.jp)
Takunori, T. (2021, October), Frequency of Japanese Workers Using English-Based on Web-Panel Questionnaires- Kwansei Gakuin University Repository. ８.pdf
